Five unnecessary banking and credit card fees

Avoiding overdraft and over limit fees by refusing to opt-in to the new "protection" plans banks are hawking is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to sparing yourself from dubious fees for financial products and services. Recently, these fees have proliferated, many of them marketed by the very financial institutions that had to roll back their heavy reliance on overdraft and penalty fee revenues after the CARD Act -- Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 -- was put in place.

"I definitely think we're seeing an uptick right now because card issuers are looking for ways to offset lost revenue," Curtis Arnold, founder of CardRatings.com, told WalletPop. "The CARD Act is costing the industry billions of dollars, and they've got to offset that somewhere." As a result, banks, card issuers and third-party financial services firms are aggressively marketing all sorts of products and services, many of which are a waste of money. Here are five financial fees you shouldn't be paying.